After a modestly slow start to the year, certified pre-owned vehicle sales rebounded last month with the best February on record, according to Autodata Corp.

There were 211,482 CPO sales for the month, which beat year-ago figures by 7.1 percent and January numbers by 10.8 percent, Autodata said.  

Each of those months had the same number of selling days (24).

The resulting daily selling rate for this February was the third-best in history at 8,812 units moved per day, according to the firm.

In two months of 2016, dealers have sold 402,433 CPO cars, which is 2.5 percent ahead of 2015.

Domestics moved 77,734 certified vehicles in February and were up 1.6 percent. Asian brands sold 99,249 CPO vehicles and were up 14.7 percent.

European brands were down slightly (0.1 percent) with 34,499 sales in February.

Year-to-date, the Big 3 is down 1.5 percent with 147,038 sales.

Asian brands are up 8.4 percent with 188,909 sales, and European sales are 3.5 percent softer at 66,486.